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We are the United Nations Inter-Agency Youth Results Group (YRG). Made up of all the UN agencies working in Timor-Leste, we coordinate the UN’s interventions related to youth work, support the Government’s efforts for young people and strive to respond to the needs of young men and women in Timor-Leste. In this issue we will have a look at the youth relevant activities of UNDP, ILO, UNESCO, UNWomen, and WFP! These agencies have implemented activities on Youth Employment and Employability, Youth and Education, Youth and Civic Participation, Youth and healthy lifestyle, themes that are highlighted in the National Youth Policy, and are important to the well-being of Timor-Leste’s youth .

Since its independence in 2002, Timor-Leste has made significant progress in social and economic development. The country achieved lower middle-income status in 2011 and has ambitions to reach upper middle-income status by 2030. As the country continues to experience socio-economic and security-related advances, the situation for women, men, girls and boys in Timor-Leste has also improved. However, major challenges remain in the area of sexual and reproductive health and rights.

The United Nations Population Fund recently publication Many Faiths, Different Contexts - Experiences with Faith Based Organizations in the Asia and Pacific Region includes a piece on UNFPA and the Ministry of Health pragmatic approach to working with the Catholic Church in Timor-Leste to promote reproductive health and rights. In 2010 the MoH and UNFPA approached the Catholic diocese to elicit their support on the national family planning programme, recognising that religious leaders offer guidance on health-related matters which can encourage healthy behaviours among their followers. Although the Catholic Church is typically seen as stringently opposed to modernl methods of contraception, the Church in Timor-Leste has taken a more nuanced approach.

Now more than ever, we must ensure that the marginalized, the forgotten—the ones often left behind—can exercise their fundamental human right to decide, free of coercion, discrimination and violence, when or how often to have children.

UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is proud to have enabled millions of women of childbearing age to exercise that right and to have helped to nearly double modern contraceptive use worldwide from 36 per cent in 1970 to 64 per cent in 2016.

This annual report shows how funds entrusted to UNFPA have enabled us to protect and promote the health and rights of millions of women and young people and enable them to realize their full potential.

With 19% of girls married before 18 and 24% already with a child by the time they turn 20, the Secretariat of State for Youth and Sports, UNFPA and Plan International decided to investigate the decision-making pathways and experiences that lead to teenage pregnancy and early marriage in Timor-Leste.

At 10, she may be denied any say in decisions about her life. At 10, her future is no longer hers. It is determined by others. Impeding a girl’s safe, healthy path through adolescence to a productive and autonomous adulthood is a violation of her rights. But it also takes a toll on her community and nation. Whenever a girl’s potential goes unrealized, we all lose.